  French777 Member Username: French777 Post Number: 317 Registered: 10-2006 |
Why don't the French Automakers come to NAIAS? Or for that matter why don't they even sell them here? I saw ONE CITROEN in the Basement. | ||
Viziondetroit Member Username: Viziondetroit Post Number: 1395 Registered: 11-2003 |
They probably don't have an interest in selling vehicles here or refitting the vehicles to conform to US safety standards etc... | ||
Treelock Member Username: Treelock Post Number: 263 Registered: 03-2005 |
Because zey would rather speet een your face, stupid American. | ||
Sciencefair Member Username: Sciencefair Post Number: 53 Registered: 10-2007 |
By banned, do you mean they don't participate or have been prohibited from participating? If you mean the former, Porsche was also "banned" this year, but that was their decision not to come to the show. | ||
Charlottepaul Member Username: Charlottepaul Post Number: 2278 Registered: 10-2006 |
A lot of European carmarkers have to redesign their vehicles for the American consumer. It has more to do with marketing than safety standards. For example, Americans want cars that do 0 to 60 in a few secs. For Europeans that is not one of the most important features. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 985 Registered: 02-2007 |
Tree..LOL | ||
Ndavies Member Username: Ndavies Post Number: 2929 Registered: 10-2003 |
Renault sold vehicles in this country up through the early 80's. Renault also had a joint venture with American Motors. They sold the nasty little Le car's at that time. They were driven out of the market due to inferior products and high prices. American Motors was absorbed by Chrysler. I've seen Citroens on the road here. I don't know if they were ever sold in quantity. Now that their products have greatly improved they are both looking to reenter the market. I don't forsee either company shipping cars from Europe. The exchange rates and cost structure greatly reduces the chances of that happening. With Nissan and Renault forming their partnership in 1999, Renault would have advantage in re-entering the US market. They could leverage Nissan's. | ||
Focusonthed Member Username: Focusonthed Post Number: 1646 Registered: 02-2006 |
quote: You answered your first question with your second question. | ||
Rampartstreetnorth Member Username: Rampartstreetnorth Post Number: 73 Registered: 07-2006 |
When I was young and dumb I bought a Renault. It was a piece of crap. I was also poor, and when I finally had to get rid of it the Renault dealer was the only one who would take it in trade, so....I bought another Renault. The second one was even worse than the first one, if that is possible. Things went wrong with that car that are so improbable that you wouldn't believe it...like the failure of the bracket attaching the driver's seat to the floor, leaving the front of the seat unsecured (in a car less than 3 years old.) This produced the consequence that, under hard acceleration (to the extent that was possible in a Renault) the driver's seat would tip backwards until I was staring at the roof. When I finally went to a chevy dealer to trade it on a used Geo Prizm I had the driver's seat propped in place with a 2X4 because the necessary part to fix the seat was unavailable due to an interruption in parts supply caused by by the Civil war in Sierra Leone or some such. When I asked the salesman what he would give me in trade he laughed, hard, and raised the price of the Prizm by $600.00 Yes, there is a very, very good reason why Renaults are no longer sold in the U.S. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 995 Registered: 02-2007 |
Thats those great european cars we keep hearing about. It wasn't just Renault, they were all junk 15-20 years ago. Now the 20-somethings on here claim that we had to meet their quality standards. Please, theirs and our quality has improved at the same rate. I grew up in a family of mechanics, foreign cars were the butt-end of many jokes due to their idiotic shoddy engineering. Remember the Simca? junk. The Opal? junk The Austin/Healy? junk. The VW? All models, junk. The list goes on and on. I'm sure I'll catch hell for the last one, compared to an Impala and the venerable 283, all the imports paled in comparison for quality and reliability. So they wouldn't corner well at 60, they got us to work every day for years and years. And they were worth something when we upgraded. If I had to pick the best car ever built, I'd say early 70's Oldsmobile. I seen many of those with 2 and 300k miles. They just ran forever. People got rid of those because they got tired of driving them. | ||
Lefty2 Member Username: Lefty2 Post Number: 1040 Registered: 07-2007 |
The French banned themselves from the Detroit Auto Show. Why was that? | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 2024 Registered: 12-2005 |
The French banned themselves because there was no return on the investment. Their product wasn't going to sell. The Japanese cars came into their own in the 1980s by improving the horrible rust problems they had (yes, they were actually worse than our cars) and those cars were small and fuel efficient--no need for quirky, unreliable European cars for the buyer who didn't want a yank tank. You don't see MG, Triumph, Austin, Fiat (oh thank gawd for that!), Peugeot or Renault any more (I know I'm forgetting a couple more) You DO see Saab (now a GM brand), Volvo (Ford) Land Rover (Ford) Jaguar (used to be God's revenge on Doctors, now a reliable car thanks to Ford), V-Dub, a brand that has its ups and downs, then Mercedes, a mechanically competent car that has always marked itself up to a price point where Americans think they are getting something that much better. There are the exotics, English and Italian and most buyers of those know what they expect and get. The Japanese small car just made all of those quirky, problem laden European cars unnecessary. That, and American companies occasionally made a decent small car. | ||
Michigansheik Member Username: Michigansheik Post Number: 265 Registered: 09-2005 |
growing up my friend had a Peugeot 505. things would stop working on that car temporarily: windows, radio, heat, a/c and the auto-trans. Sometimes there would be no reverse, others only reverse and 2nd drive. But none of these ever permanently failed over those two years! I agree that Renault would be the first Frenchie to return because of their Nissan ties. | ||
Peachlaser Member Username: Peachlaser Post Number: 152 Registered: 08-2006 |
The Peugeot 908 is trying to make history with their diesel powered Le Mans-type racer. http://www.autobloggreen.com/2 006/09/28/puegot-shows-their-d iesel-lemans-racer/ The Peugeot twin-turbo-powered diesel V-12 is topping the speed charts at the Sebring Winter Test this week against Audi, the current leader in advanced diesel endurance racing engines. The most successful team in ALMS history, Corvette Racing, has made the switch this year from running E10 to E85 Ethanol. http://www.corvetteracing.com/ Check out Corvette's official calendar for 2008. The photo is from Belle Isle with the RenCen in the background. http://www.corvetteracing.com/ downloads/pdf/CorvetteRacing20 08calendar.pdf | ||
Rampartstreetnorth Member Username: Rampartstreetnorth Post Number: 74 Registered: 07-2006 |
Ahhh..Sstashmoo, we are dating ourselves here, but it's been far longer than 15-20 years ago since brands like Simca, Austin-Healy etc. were sold in the U.S. The last Austin Healy was built 36 years ago. Simca, which was owned by Chrysler/Europe, disappeared as a separate corporate entity in 1977, although cars under the Simca badge were sold into the early 80's. What the European brands had going for them in the 60's and early 70's was price (at the lower end of the spectrum,) better fuel economy and more agile handling. What American cars had was space, power and long term durability. Both European and American cars had metallurgical problems that led to premature rusting. But the oil embargo of 1973 exposed the vulnerability inherent in poor fuel economy, and when the Japanese began making cars that were both fuel efficient and reliable Detroit lost its last trump card. Sstashmoo wrote; "Thats those great european cars we keep hearing about. It wasn't just Renault, they were all junk 15-20 years ago. Now the 20-somethings on here claim that we had to meet their quality standards. Please, theirs and our quality has improved at the same rate. I grew up in a family of mechanics, foreign cars were the butt-end of many jokes due to their idiotic shoddy engineering. Remember the Simca? junk. The Opal? junk The Austin/Healy? junk. The VW? All models, junk. The list goes on and on." | ||
Drankin21 Member Username: Drankin21 Post Number: 159 Registered: 12-2003 |
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? European brands that are not in the North American market (or have plans to ENTER the North American market. read: Chinese automakers) do not market in North America. There are no customers here that can or will by their cars. Saturns are now German Opels and in one case (Astra) are made in Europe (Belgium). The new Fords in the pipeline (Verve) are from Ford's design groups in Europe. Much of the technology in the current Chryslers are from Europe. Things have changed and it is no longer a black and white issue. Be careful, some of the technology that you see in your "American" car may have been invented or developed somewhere else. | ||
Ro_resident Member Username: Ro_resident Post Number: 294 Registered: 11-2003 |
With Tata Motors in negotiations with Ford over purchasing Jaguar and Land Rover, maybe we'll have a couple of Indian brands representing at the NAIAS 2009. | ||
Toolbox Member Username: Toolbox Post Number: 1126 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: One of the issues with the European vehicles was most neanderthal american mechanics could not get their heads around the technology used in those vehicles. A VW without a carb in 68, a Honda that met emissions without a cat and air pump in 74 are the kinds of things i grew up on. | ||
Otter Member Username: Otter Post Number: 7 Registered: 12-2007 |
Peugeot, Renault and Citroen no longer sell here more or less for some of the reasons given above. They were not alwa"ys well-aligned to the US market (some were, some weren't) and the quality and reliability were a bit dodgy. Renault and Peugeot were the last to leave, in the early 1990s. Citroen stopped selling here when the DS was replaced by the CX in about 1974. Sstashmoo's impressions of European cars are about 35 years out of date and were only relevant to the low end of the scale in any case. David | ||
Hybridy Member Username: Hybridy Post Number: 210 Registered: 08-2006 |
my friend's dad ran some ugly ass 1980's renault. he had 320,000 miles on it, before he traded up to his durango. ugly, but very dependable |
